BMW i EfficientDynamics - i3 confirmed to be a RWD, Mid-Engine car.

[Frank McGank]

As always, it's very easy to dismiss all criticism as "boomers not liking change". No, there are plenty of futuristic looking cars that people love. The iX just looks awful.

Welcome to the ‘ignore the haters’ era, where literally all forms of criticism (even constructive criticism) is dismissed out of hand as mindless ‘hating’.

 

[Apok]

Well the iX sure is a thing...
I actually don't hate the exterior, but it sure isn't winning any beauty competitions.
Does anyone else really not like the trend of making dashboards minimalistic and then just having some touch screens stick out of them? I'm not a fan of touch screens in the first place. Guess I'm too much of a boomer at 25 years of age. But it also just looks really ugly to me. It's probably cheaper to design and make though.

 

[FT-1]

Careful BMW, you might cut yourself from being so edgy:

 

[UltimateYosh]

It is getting harder and harder to defend BMW these days.

Yikes.

 

[Silver Arrows]

I legitimately do not understand what purpose actual companies have with making clapbacks on Twitter. Especially car companies, and especially ones who seem deadset on bad design languages like BMW has. Do you think people are going to be clapping for you like anyone else?

 

[05XR8]

Just feels like BMW is doing the thing that PD did with "Burn it to the ground" or whatever the slogan was for GT Sport.

It'll backfire.

 

[Rossell2]

I'll make my feelings known on the styling of this car.... Eventually... When I've finished throwing up.

 

[AbsoluteBarstool]

Really not getting BMW's obsession with designing cars and then ruining them with an egregious eyesore like a massive grill, massive wheels or the application of plasticky 'futurism'. I have no doubt that they started with a good base in the i3 and i8, but then just needed to see what they'd look like in I, Robot or Advanced Warfare. It just doesn't wash on today's roads.

Even the iX, whilst slightly more restrained, looks like it will come across as tacky and disingenuous when you actually see one in front of you. Underneath, it's still the same sort of thing as you'd get from the rest of BMW's range and it probably still breaks backs over potholes and speedbumps.

There is one thing about the car that I like, though - and that's that the rear end vaguely reminds me of the Mazda Kusabi. Looks bulky, yet a bit smaller than it actually is.

 

[Tornado]

BMW directly attacking their customer base in their advertising is a bold strategy. Let's see if it pays off for them.








That entire Twitter chain is completely off the rails, too, because not only did someone post that as an advertisement for an upcoming model; but whatever idiot social media manager thought it was a good idea is also picking fights with the people downstream who responded to it. It's like when one of the hacks left at Jalopnik post something stupid in an article, then spend hours attacking the people who point it out in the comments instead of just fixing the article.

 

[Moglet]

That entire Twitter chain is completely off the rails, too, because not only did someone post that as an advertisement for an upcoming model; but whatever idiot social media manager thought it was a good idea is also picking fights with the people downstream who responded to it. It's like when one of the hacks left at Jalopnik post something stupid in an article, then spend hours attacking the people who point it out in the comments instead of just fixing the article.

Has anyone checked where William Storey is?

EDIT:

 

[ProjectWHaT]

BMW i4 M

https://www.motor1.com/news/462821/bmw-i4-m-spied/

This test car looks very similar to the previous one photographed in October. You may be tempted to believe this is the very same prototype but the registration plates are different, suggesting BMW has at least a few i4 M trial cars. Also, this one rides on smaller wheels with winter tires.

We have to admit nothing about the car screams performance at first glance. Under a closer inspection, however, you’ll discover the M twin-stalk exterior mirrors. Dig further, and you’ll notice the slightly wider rear fenders hiding a wider rear track. Also worth noting are the large M brakes. The rest of the vehicle seems pretty standard but there may be more M details hiding underneath that camouflage.

 

[FT-1]

BMW's bizarre marketing campaign for the iX continues with this short film depicting a 760Li as a bitter old man and the iX as a savvy youngster... What's the end goal here?

 

[Silver Arrows]

Seems like the end goal is to continue trying to make it seem like their design language is some sort of galaxy brain, four dimensional chess play where they can lambast people for (rightfully) bagging on how ugly it is, and not give in to calls to do an emergency restyling.

It's not working.

Though it reminds me of how pedestrian the Chris Bangle designed 7 series is now, and how much of a furor it caused. Tempest in a teapot considering what BMW is facing now, no?

 

[ProjectWHaT]

BMW i4 with a bit less camo now. You can see the mirror caps with a nice red body color so this is probably using the production body

https://www.motor1.com/news/487271/bmw-i4-spied-less-camouflage/

It appears to be exactly the same as the ICE 4 series Gran Coupe.

 

[FT-1]

That shade of red reminds me of the paint job the M Sport variant of the iX made its debut with, could be one of the signature colours for future i Models.

 

[FT-1]

BMW i4 Revealed, Will be available with up to 523hp:

 

[Moglet]

I can't help but think that the styling feels a bit tame compared to the other i-series vehicles. Which I imagine is the whole point as it can entice buyers who want more familiarity when switching to an EV but still, I'd have loved to have seen an i4 with i8 and i3 levels of uniqueness.

 

[homeforsummer]

I can't help but think that the styling feels a bit tame compared to the other i-series vehicles. Which I imagine is the whole point as it can entice buyers who want more familiarity when switching to an EV but still, I'd have loved to have seen an i4 with i8 and i3 levels of uniqueness.

Yup. Sadly they've chosen to abandon something actually forward-looking and instead apply their new mix of weird details and dumpy proportions. The i4's probably one of the better recent BMW designs honestly, at least in white in those pics where it's probably washing out a lot of the bad bits, but it could have been so much more.

 

[VXR]

I despair where this brand has gone in the last 10 years. 20 years ago they were the de facto benchmark for taste and driving experience. Now their rivals in almost all cases look nicer and some have closed that dynamic gap to irrelevance in the real world.

 

[FT-1]

M Sport variant of the iX3 leaked:

 

[05XR8]

Is this for real?

Come now, BMW...

 

[RandomCarGuy17]

So it's more of BMW being stupid.

 

[TheCracker]

Isn't this just an electrified G01 (2017-) X3 with slightly revised front detailing?

 

[MatskiMonk]

Isn't this just an electrified G01 (2017-) X3 with slightly revised front detailing?

Yes, it's an LCI iX3.

 

[TheCracker]

Aside from the what looks to be large horizontal bar behind the kidneys, it just looks like a refreshed (LCI) X3. I don't get what people are making a fuss about

 

[homeforsummer]

Have to say, not a fan of BMW's recent styling but that X3's far from the worst offender. In that colour and with sensibly-sized wheels it might even be one of the better-looking ones.

 

[VXR]

Have to say, not a fan of BMW's recent styling but that X3's far from the worst offender. In that colour and with sensibly-sized wheels it might even be one of the better-looking ones.

I hold this opinion of the X1 - as the best of a very bad bunch, simply because it does the least offensive attempt of being a modern BMW.

The current 5-series seems to be their last traditionally handsome saloon, too.

 

[homeforsummer]

The last couple of 5s have been decent enough but fairly bland for me. The E60 was a bit out-there but has aged well and made the two following generations look dull. And because it's so big and bulky now too, they don't have that minimalist look of pre-E60 5-series to fall back on either.

The X1 I'm not keen on, but part of that is proportions. The original X1 was no looker but the proportions were way better, as it was basically a RWD platform car instead of a FWD platform one. Current 1-series suffers exactly the same way - even if its details were better it'd still have the proportions of a ten-year-old Korean hatchback.

I think proportion is the main thing BMW's lost with recent generations, way more so than any concerns about grilles or whatever. For all the complaining people did about the Bangle era (ignoring that Bangle was also behind cars like the E46 3-series), proportions were still always spot-on. Minimal front overhang, long bonnet, Hoffmeister right over the rear axle line, great body to glass ratio etc.

Current 3/5/7 are still fairly close if you view them directly from the side, but out on the road stuff like the wide grilles, messy bumpers and indistinct side surfaces chip away at that, while the FWD-based stuff is just lumpen. The F20 was no oil painting but it still feels way more "BMW" in its basic form than the current 1-series.

And yeah, weirdly, cars like the X3 or X5, while I'm not keen on the way they look to start with, have probably suffered less than most.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

The last couple of 5s have been decent enough but fairly bland for me. The E60 was a bit out-there but has aged well and made the two following generations look dull. And because it's so big and bulky now too, they don't have that minimalist look of pre-E60 5-series to fall back on either.

The X1 I'm not keen on, but part of that is proportions. The original X1 was no looker but the proportions were way better, as it was basically a RWD platform car instead of a FWD platform one. Current 1-series suffers exactly the same way - even if its details were better it'd still have the proportions of a ten-year-old Korean hatchback.

I think proportion is the main thing BMW's lost with recent generations, way more so than any concerns about grilles or whatever. For all the complaining people did about the Bangle era (ignoring that Bangle was also behind cars like the E46 3-series), proportions were still always spot-on. Minimal front overhang, long bonnet, Hoffmeister right over the rear axle line, great body to glass ratio etc.

Current 3/5/7 are still fairly close if you view them directly from the side, but out on the road stuff like the wide grilles, messy bumpers and indistinct side surfaces chip away at that, while the FWD-based stuff is just lumpen. The F20 was no oil painting but it still feels way more "BMW" in its basic form than the current 1-series.

And yeah, weirdly, cars like the X3 or X5, while I'm not keen on the way they look to start with, have probably suffered less than most.

I can't say I'm adding much to this thread, but I will say that I agree the E60 is a good looking car. Honestly, I think it's better looking than the E39. While the E39 M5 looks great, the normal E39s look pretty pedestrian & unsporting, whereas even the lowliest E60 still looks pretty sharp. (I absolutely adore the E38 on the other hand and feel it is vastly superior to all of the preceding and following 7 series - the E38 has some of the best proportions I've seen in a sedan.) The X3 and X5 probably escape the wonky proportions because they are already tall enough to avoid being distorted by various crash and pedestrian safety mandates. Part of me feels like the whole explosion of demand for SUVs is that they still look somewhat "normal" whereas cars keeping getting worse and worse front end detailing to deal with various regulations.

To digress even further, this E60 with...inexplicably...the new M4 mouth on it...might be the worst thing I've ever seen.

 

[TheCracker]

I always thought the X1 was by far the worst proportioned of the X models. The X2 works so much better and without resorting to the silly coupe-like styling of the X4 and X6. Proportionately the X5 has always been spot on for me, mainly due to the pumped up rear haunches that it has that the X1 and X3 don't have. The X3 has always appeared under-wheeled, but just about gets away with anything no smaller than a 19". The X1 suffers from 'big features on a small face' as well as looking under-wheeled.

Part of me feels like the whole explosion of demand for SUVs is that they still look somewhat "normal" whereas cars keeping getting worse and worse front end detailing to deal with various regulations.

I also think that not long ago, when manufacturers started adding SUVs to their ranges, the styling and detailing clues were taken from their regular ranges of hatchback/saloon/sedan/wagon/coupe and often just looked wrong on the very different shaped SUV body size. The 1st generations of Cayenne, Touareg and Tiguan were particularly bad for this. But now, with SUVs being big sellers for manufacturers, their styling is either driving or at least a major consideration when it comes to their overall styling and detailing for their ranges. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why many non SUV/crossover cars now are perhaps not as pretty as they once were.